


Terezi: Crush the Lich

by TTMIYH



Series: Homestuck VS The Evil Lich [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bad Ending, Corruption, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dragons, F/F, Fantasy Violence, Fire, Gross Regeneration But Not In Detail, Kobolds, Liches, Mind Control, Monster Girls, Monsters, Transformation, Wizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:00:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28932909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TTMIYH/pseuds/TTMIYH
Summary: Terezi had a bone to pick. Not - not literally, though, the long, giant-femur staff she trodded along the ground could certainly be misconstrued for a bone that one wished to pick from, if one had the right linguistic intentions. No, her bone, and the picking thereof, was entirely metaphorical. Terezi, one of the most gifted Kobold magi of a generation, blessed by her eightfold grandsire for the journey, wearing a full pad of amulets and charms from every single person in her village, had a bone to pick with Rose, the Lich that had taken up residence in their ancestral caverns, tainting them with her rot.
Relationships: Rose Lalonde/Terezi Pyrope
Series: Homestuck VS The Evil Lich [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2118672
Kudos: 9





	Terezi: Crush the Lich

Terezi had a bone to pick. Not - not literally, though, the long, giant-femur staff she trodded along the ground could certainly be misconstrued for a bone that one wished to pick from, if one had the right linguistic intentions. No, her bone, and the picking thereof, was entirely metaphorical. Terezi, one of the most gifted Kobold magi of a generation, blessed by her eightfold grandsire for the journey, wearing a full pad of amulets and charms from every single person in her village, had a bone to pick with Rose, the Lich that had taken up residence in their ancestral caverns, tainting them with her rot.

Plus, she was fairly certain Rose had killed her girlfriend. That was also unconscionable. Terezi really liked Vriska, god damnit, and the last thing she had heard of her regular adventuring partner and frequent lay and even more frequent cuddle-and-look-at-the-stars was "Hey, Terezi, I'm going to go kill Rose the Lich!", and Terezi had begged her to wait and prepare, but _noooooooo_ , ever the gloryhound, she had to--

Okay, deep breaths, Terezi. You could do this. You can kick the door down.

What proceeded was an epic and, doubtlessly, bodacious journey of a single diminutive Kobold, with the whole strength of a village and a missing girl behind her, basically bashing the shit out an entire dungeon. Every trap? Disarmed, she got that. Zombies? Fire spells. Skeletons? Ice spells. Her charms constantly sucking up the tainted air, and, lest you believe that Terezi is dumb enough to soak in dark magic without precautions, purifying it into a potable source of mana to fuel her furious onslaught.

Kobolds were, after all, naturally attuned to dungeons, and Terezi, despite her blindness, was a stellar Kobold. She could smell every enemy coming, she knew exactly where the wires would be for maximum tripwireiness, even the pressure plates weren't pressured hard enough by her light weight. She vaulted and trode through that dungeon like it was absolutely nothing, and when the final stairwell approached and she could tell - she could just _tell_ \- that the end was near, she took a deep breath, steeling herself.

It's not like failure was impossible. After all, Vriska, despite being a stubborn asshole, was one of the most skilled warriors Terezi had known, and she disappeared after her trip to fight Rose. Frankly, the possibility that she was about to die here was never too far from her mind. She took a couple of deep breaths, and descended into the dark.

She wasn't able to tell the exact layout of the antechamber she strode so carefully into, but she could feel the stone going from dry to damp, hear the flowing of cave water - _her tribe's water_ \- into two fairly large pools, and she knew that footing would be treacherous. She could feel a presence in the room with her, and she could _smell_ rot.

There was a Lich in front of her, getting closer, while Terezi strode forward with all the confidence in the world behind her little ratty body. For some people, this would be an immediate death sentence, because the Lich's glowing purple eyes would quickly bewitch and ensnare them with minimal effort, or she'd shatter their wards and then conquer their mind all the same if there was something in the way.

Terezi posed a unique problem for Rose, thus.

SHE'S BLIND, REMEMBER?

"Fiend! I've come to end this!" Terezi shouted, knowing by stench just how far away Rose was and _deliberately_ bumping into her, as a show of disrespect. Rose looked down at the Kobold with a degree of shock, maybe even surprise, for the first time in decades if not centuries. She blinked a couple of times in disbelief. Kobolds, the bottom of the food chain, oh yes, hadn't she drove away a Kobold tribe a thousand years ago or so when she first set up shop in this dungeon? There was no way, was this--"I'm here to reclaim the homeland of my people, and also burn you to a crisp for killing my girlfriend!"

Yep, it was. Rose bent down and tapped Terezi a couple of times on the snout, not the kind of all-powerful taps that burnt all of her defenses to a magical cinder and stripped her of any ability to resist, but more of a... What the hell is that? Kind of tap. "Your hands smell like shit! Are those bones? Are those gods-damned bones for hands? Strewth!"

Rose snorted with derisive laughter. "You know what? I think I won't kill you. You can leave right now, because I think you're funny, and I won't do anything to you or your tribe. Hell, I might even send you your girlfriend back to guard you all, free of charge!" She offered, one hundred percent genuine. Was this a wise decision? Of course not, but whichever monster Terezi was dating previously would be able to take a week off to watch some Kobolds before running them off. They were too pathetic to even be worth killing. "Which one was she? Do you mind terribly describing--"

Rose was interrupted by a powerful gout of flame, a positively stunning amount of mana that she couldn't previously detect getting pumped into a geyser-sized inferno. What was that, Phloghiston's Mystic Meteor? No, there was a searing sort of brightness to this, almost tart, ripping strips of flesh from her skin as it forced her back several steps. Terezi screamed with fury as she shoved her staff forward into the air, pumping even _more_ into it, twice as strong as it was a moment ago, atomizing two of Rose's fingers.

Oh, this was actually pretty impressive.

Oh shit, that actually hurt.

Rose raised her hands up to block the pyre, only to be met by it doubling in intensity again - just what was this little Kobold even _made_ of? An endless fountain of scorching fire evaporated both of the pools in the room into mist as the heat only intensified. Terezi took another step forward, and another, and eventually, even Rose's cherished robe couldn't survive, the sheer kinetic force of the blast ripping it free from her body, loose from the wards, tossed in the wind and then turned to ash.

Rose let out a wild, wailing shriek as Terezi pumped every last bit of mana she had into the spell. Something she had cooked up after studying one of the tomes Vriska had looted from a prior adventure, incorporating elements of the scorching, red-hot sun that had blinded her into her fire. This was intensely, inhumanly personal. "Terezi's Solar Flare", she'd name it, in her little notebook, a no-holds-barred anti-undead weapon made for exterminating any traces of filthy, tainted magic from a given locale, and burn anything standing in the process.

Terezi marched forward with a steady, caustic rhythm, sweeping her staff's tip just a bit from side to side to ensure she exterminated every last scrap of Rose from this earth. When she couldn't feel her anymore, or smell her carbonized flesh, she sighed, flopping down onto the floor and then falling back on the warm stone as the swirling evaporated steam settled on her face.

Finally, it was finished. Having fed the entirety of her dungeon's black mana back into her, Terezi's amulets and charms had given what they could. No filter could last forever, especially not with that much use, and they shattered into fragments, each one breaking in time, the pieces falling off her many string necklaces. But that was okay.

She only woke up when she felt Rose's hand grabbing her by the snout, lifting her in the air, squeezing it shut with her thumb. "That... was _painful_." Rose growled through grit teeth, her regenerated body having grown back at her phylactery for the first time in centuries, for certain. Her robe, slowly growing back across her skin, was absurdly unable to provide the modesty she wanted, leaving her body out for the entire world to see. If there was anyone in here watching, she would've killed them first. "Whose spell is that? Phloghiston's? Kelvin's? Tell me now, little lizard, or your life is forfeit."

Rose pinned Terezi to the wall with her free hand so she could let go of her snout, only to receive a faceful of saliva for her troubles. "Terezi's, you swine. I made it to kill the undead. Why are you still alive?"

Rose wiped the spit off her chest with an annoyed grunt, flicking it to the ground. "I don't believe a feeble little lizard like you could've invented a spell like that. Tell me who made it, so I can scour the flesh from their bones and burn all their scrolls!"

Terezi grinned, not even caring that she had failed - that Rose was still alive. No, she had expected to win, for sure, but wounding an immortal foe's pride, providing her what Terezi could only assume was the first pain in centuries, that was just as much of a treat. She accepted her death. "Terezi Pyrope, Kobold of the Pyralspite Tribe. Go rub one out with your bone fingers, Rose. Go cry to your skelet-- hff!" Terezi taunted, before getting chokeslammed by Rose into the wall and then tossed to the floor. Quietly, she blessed her light weight and thick skull for making it barely feel like anything at all.

"I despise you, lizard. Taste _real_ magic."

And with a loud, horrific noise of a thousand dead souls channeling themselves through the air, Terezi found sight once more for the first time in ages. Oh, it was simple enough. Rose had memorized thousands of year's worth of spells, all the schools of magic possible, invented a few herself. Restoration magic was child's play, and when Terezi opened her eyes for the first time, with no more charms or wards or filters to protect her from Rose's dark arts, her willpower was instantly obliterated by the glowing binary stars that were Rose's furious glare. "You don't even deserve a kiss. I have nothing but scorn for you, Lizard." Rose murmured, with all the hate in her shriveled black heart she could muster.

Terezi sat there, staring blankly ahead as her eyesight was once again stricken from her. A tap from a bony finger to the forehead and she fell back, once again reacting, but purely on animal instinct. Rose aimed the short little femur-bone staff forward and poured a torrent of damned spirits down Terezi's gullet, causing her to arch high off the ground, hovering several feet above it while she twisted and writhed.

First, the eye, unseeing, the third eye splitting from Terezi's forehead. New nerves mingled and fused with old ones, providing a connection through which Rose could always watch and monitor Terezi's actions. Her red-scorched glare tinted a sickening purple hue.

Where vestigial wingbones existed beneath Terezi's skin, they burst painlessly outwards, stretching and warping into two oversized, batlike wings, dragging along the ground. Terezi let out a little chuff of exertion, her mouth forced open by the flood of souls pumping into her, throat visibly swallowing every couple of seconds, making her body rock and twitch with each gulp. Yes, Rose had grown her minions before, but to mutate a Kobold into a full grown Dragon would require considerably more effort than Rose could summon at once, even with her vast reserves of effort (reserves that she had burnt out regenerating, natch).

Terezi's body started swelling and growing to match her new wings, scales discoloring a bright white as all the purity was scorched away from her body. Her claws elongated and twisted, her fangs grew sharper and more numerous. Several new horns presented themselves from the side of her lengthening snout, and while her form remained distinctly humanoid, it was rapidly developing a more bestial edge as she burst out of her rags. Her entire body started to rapidly shake and vibrate as she continued to grow, beyond the size of a normal human, even, her tail developing into a blade-tipped whip capable of decapitating whole legions at once. Her chest developed from "nonexistent" to "still nonexistent", as she lacked mammary glands to even have swell in the first place, but nevertheless, by the time she had finished growing and metamorphosing, Terezi was every bit the fully grown Dragon she was meant to be.

Falling down onto the stone brick, Terezi slowly, blearily rolled over onto her back, and then, her soft belly, pulling herself up into a standing stance. She sniffed around for Rose, and when she found her, began coiling protectively, wrapping her wings and tail around Rose and resting her snout on Rose's shoulder. "There. Now you'll never hurt me ever again, will you, Lizard?"

"Of course not, Mistress Rose." Terezi snorted derisively, blowing a small burst of flame from her nostrils. "I will, however, shit on your books. I apologize in advance, but it's simply the most natural place for it."

**Author's Note:**

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> 
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